Dax Shepard on Parenthood

So, maybe he just got engaged to actress Kristen Bell of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Veronica Mars fame in February, but that hasn’t stopped Dax Shephard from tackling Parenthood… on TV of course. The show that started on NBC on Tuesday is a remake of a remake that all started when Executive Producer Ron Howard was barfed on on an airplane by his toddler daughter back in 1985. “Bryce [Dallas Howard, next to be seen in the Twighlight Saga: Eclipse] was sitting next to me on a plane to Buenos Aires,” the proud Papa and former Happy Days star shared. “I thought she might want to try sushi and she projectile vomitted on me. It was hour ONE of a 17 hour flight. I thought, ‘When and how did THIS happen to me.'”

And so a movie was born in 1989, followed by a TV show in 1990 and finally to Tuesday’s premier episode.

The current installment was put on hiatus last fall after Maura Tierney was diagnosed with breast cancer. When her treatment and the show’s schedule conflicted, Lauren Graham replaced her. “It’s so smart and the style of it is quite different, too,” the former Gilmore Girls star told Breezy Mama. “I wouldn’t be good on something where I couldn’t have a sense of humor.”

Like Graham, Dax’s character will play a single parent. Breezy Mama got the scoop from him on his feelings of working with such a large cast, how Parenthood is making him a homebody and more.

So are you ready to play a single dad?

Uh, well, like my character, I don’t get to pick whether I’m ready, so I guess I am.

You don’t have kids, right?

I don’t.

Do you have nieces and nephews?

I do. I have three really beautiful nieces. They live in Michigan so I don’t get to see them a tremendous amount but we have very close friends with children and I’m a Godparent to a little four month baby. So, I’m around kids all of the time.

Are your nieces excited to see you on TV?

Um, yeah. I bet they will be. They seem to watch my movies over and over again to my brother’s dismay.

So they like them?

Oddly, the one who is 8 likes Let’s Go to Prison the most [laughs] which bums out my brother. And the middle one likes Zathura the most… But I don’t think the teenager likes anything about me [laughs] or my career. She’s a teenager so she doesn’t like anything.

Are you excited to work with such a big cast?

I really am because – this sounds really cliché and cheesy, but I think a lot of us actors end up leaving our home town and in my case that’s 2500 miles away so this does end up being your family. There’s a very, very real family dynamic that goes on on set and it feels very much like a family, so I think it’s wonderful to have this many people in and out. Every time you go to work you see someone you haven’t seen in two weeks and then you’re working with someone you haven’t worked with in a while and I think that really keeps it fresh.

With such a big cast, does that give you the opportunity to continue to work on movies?

We shall see.

[laughs]

I’m new into this experiment, but I have to say that I’m really liking the idea of just driving to and from work every day. I used to really embrace the vagabond lifestyle of just doing movies, but the older I get I certainly like to be home a lot more. I’ve created a nice place for myself and I’d like to be able to enjoy it.

Need some parenting advice? Me too! Join Breezy Mama and Amy McCready — who has been seen on the Today Show for her fabulous parenting advice — for a FREE webinar on “Why Time Out Is a Waste of Time.” Grab your wine or your cocoa and kick back at home after the kids are in bed — no need to pay for a sitter! March 9, 8pm pacific. Be sure to sign up — click here!